This weekend sees another incredibly busy weekend for Aston Martin Racing and its customer teams as battle lines are drawn in series and championships around the world.

Starting with the factory team, they find themselves straight back at a race track after their successful launch of the new GTE Vantage in the opening round of the World Endurance Championship at Spa Francorchamps last week with a two car entry into the formidable ADAC Zurich 24H race from the Nordschleife.

The event is being used by the team and their full factory driver line up in many ways - as a dress rehearsal for the forthcoming 24Hours of Le Mans in just five weeks time, a 'single bullet' assault on the toughest endurance race against their German OEM opposition but also to pay homage to the outgoing V8 and V12 Vantage that will compete at the Green Hell for the final time as factory concerns.

Joining them all in their rather cosy garage will be another AMR Performance Centre entry for customers Heinz Jurgen Kroner, Jens Dralle, Tony Richards and David Thilenius aboard last years SP8 class winning Vantage GT8.

Over in China, this weekend sees the opening round of the 2018 China GT Championship from Zhuhai with Partner Team China Equity AMR entering four of their six available V8 vantage GT4's with British driver Jack Mitchell racing alongside Ryan Liu.
AMR reserve driver Ross Gunn was also expected to be with the team but we understand that (other than Jack) the team will be running with a more regionally based pay drivers. Quite how that progresses throughout the season we will wait and see.

Over at the home of British Motor racing, four AMR V8 Vantage GT4's are due to take part in the second round of the Britcar Championship with both EDF Motorsport and Whitebridge AMR getting in some more crucial mileage before their trip to Le Sarthe in mid June for the AMR Festival.

Whitebridge AMR return with their double car, single driver entries for both Chris Murphy and Barry McMahon and EDF with Aussie Mal Sandford and co driver Ben Seyfried. These three should be joined by Dean Gibbs in his own GT4 entry in the Endurance class.

Moving down geographically to the historic town of Pau in the French Pyrenees, Generation AMR SuperRacing make a return to the tracks in one of their V8 Vantage GT4's in the now separated FFSA GT4 Series with both Matty George and James Holder behind the wheel of the #144 car.

Having competed last year in what was then the European GT4 Southern Cup, Holder has been backing the new Jaguar GT4 British GT racing programme that George is part of the driver line up in and Appleby Engineering help prepare. Returning to Pau was one of Holders clear intentions for 2018 despite having something of a bruising weekend last year.

Finally (we think) and back around on the opposite side of the world, sees the Australian GT Championship return for their third event of the season at Sundown Park, Melbourne after their somewhat bizarre, weather affected inaugural visit to Australia's newest racetrack at The Bend last month.

With Jeremy Gray having shared his #67 Vantage GT4 with Andrew Miedecke last time out in the endurance round at The Bend, he returns this weekend in a solo form hoping to recover the GT4 Championship lead that was lost at The bend.